Built by Family, for Family

Month: December 2017

The Bible says at Ecclesiastes 3:1- “There is an appointed time for everything”. In life balance can be a hard thing to continue to possess over time. Many things demand our attention, but a few items are are a requirement. Building our home is something that, no doubt, needs to be accomplished, but making sure that it doesn’t overshadow all we do can be a challenge. It can overtake all that you think about and try to accomplish. One reason, is that it is enjoyable to build something that you will continue to enjoy. But I have come to find that setting limits helps to keep that balance in most things I do in life. Whether it be spiritual, familial or secular. Our project is teaching me new lessons when it comes to priorities. In our life we have adjusted much of our life due to circumstances. On a project of this magnitude balance to is needed to accomplish a task and move forward. We are working on a schedule for the coming months, for Dad and I having a goal for each day help us to make sure we “appoint” our time properly. Our video below shows some before pics along with some pics a couple weeks after the fact.

Puzzles can be a fun thing to do from time to time. Our current puzzle is a bit larger when it comes to building this house. Sometimes it can seem overwhelming to have to fit each piece together to complete it. But we have quickly learned that sometimes you have to set a piece aside and work on another portion of the puzzle. This happened this week with the septic. We ran into pretty big rocks in both holes that were dug for the 2 septic tanks then it snowed on us so we couldn’t access the leach field to finish digging it. This got us a bit frustrated!! But, we just set the septic installation aside and just about finished our driveway yesterday, today we dug out some that is to be Karyn and I’s portion of the home. So we ended the week tired but accomplished. Next week we are renting a rock breaker and hope it will be able to break up the rock we have in the way. If so we will be able to finish our septic tank installation.

So it is the 14th of December and we have had minimal snow in the Denver area, even in the high country. Our property is at 8,500 feet above sea level so the weather can have a large effect on what we can accomplish. Well, last night we got about 2″ of snow that fell. This late in the year causes problems when it comes to progress. The ground starts to freeze and is much harder than you would ever guess. It limits our access to the leach field which is on a fairly steep slope on the back side of the property. Time will tell what we will be able to complete this winter.

The funny thing is I am a bit of a weather nut (just ask Karyn, my wife, I should have been a weather forecaster). I love cloud formations, big storms and watching how they form and dissipate. The video here shows some pretty cool cloud changes that we saw today. Beautiful to watch come and go. This is one thing I look forward to when we live up here full time.

“Everybody poops!” This is the title of a popular child’s book that helps potty train kids, or so I am told. It is, though, a simple fact. Our waste must go somewhere. In the case of building a house in the mountains, there is no option to hook up to city sewage disposal, so we are installing a Septic system with a leach field.

We have had to complete a few things before starting our septic adventures.

We were required by the county to have a system designed by an engineer to accommodate the home and its occupants. The engineer came and looked at the site, we then had to dig two 8′ deep holes where the leach field was going to be located. This was done to ensure ground water levels will not interfere with the system working properly in the future. These were inspected by the engineer before he provides the design. He then provided us a design for the home.

Yesterday we started digging the first Septic tank hole. Unfortunately we ran into a huge rock. Because of this we asked a friend who is a builder to come by and give us a bit of advice. He thinks we can break it up with a rock breaker that will hook up to our rental machine. Time will tell if it will do the job, if it doesn’t we will have to blow it up. Which could be fun also.

Today we dug the second septic tank and found another rock about 5′. More rock breaking! Yay!! We then dug the trench for the drain line from the tanks to the leach field. It needed to be 2′ deep to keep it from freezing and being crushed.

We also started the leach field. This is Turing out to be a bit of a task for a few reasons. It is on the back of the property, which has a 12-14 degree slope. There is are a bunch of trees in the way to get access to the site. Slowly we will get this figured out. Video below shows a little of the last couple days.

The weather is saying snow is coming, time will tell. I want to get the leach field dug but that might be postponed for a couple days due to access.

“The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease” has been a philosophy I have used for much of my life. But trying to avoid “squeaks” with our tools is what keeps us safe and running on schedule. No matter what type of work you do, you have various types of tools and equipment that will be used to accomplish any given task. This can vary from a hammer to an excavator. Maintaining these tools takes time, but it is well worth it. We rented our Case 580 Super M Loader Excavator about ten days ago.

In The Cab

Delivery

The Loader/Excavator has done a ton of work so far on our project. Tyler and I have been running it pretty constantly. But in order for it to continue to work hard, it needs maintenance each day. We have to do the following, each day we check various fluids (fuel, oil, antifreeze, hydraulic, etc.) for correct levels. The next item to maintenance is the grease zerks. Zerks provide oil to areas that are high friction points on the unit. There is a chart on the side of the unit that shows what zerks to grease each day and then which others to grease per hour of run time. This will reduce failures in the future as much as possible.

Thursday we noticed as we ran the excavator that we had a hydraulic leak. We called the rental company and they sent out a mechanic to check it out. Fortunately it was just a loose fitting that was leaking and it took him less than an hour to fix it. So something to remember is that routine maintenance takes time each and every day, but in the long run it saves down time and cost the to fix broken items. Not to mention it keeps all on the project safer from failures. Be smart, maintain your equipment.

“Arrrrr” -Corny I know but it fits with what is coming. Loosely, haha!

Dirt- Definition – “earth used to make a surface for a road, floor, or other area of ground..” In our case we are using it to build a driveway up to the property. This process has given us a new appreciation for those who build and maintain roadways. The initial work that is put into it is tremendous. We have spent just a week and a half and have at least another week and a half of moving dirt from one place (the site) to another (main driveway, building a place to store trailers, etc.).

One great byproduct has been finding a few precious gems as we unearth this dirt. We have found lots of pyrite (Fools Gold) but also some different quartz types (Smoky Quartz and Clear Quartz). What is amazing is the process that all these were made. They are always six sided due to there molecular makeup. But they are created primarily by Magma (lava) that heats it and then deposited it millions of years ago (possibly at the creation of the world) into these crevices of earth. Only to be found by us as we try to build a home. A welcome surprise!

It is kind of fun because it brings me back to the days of being about 6-7 years old. I guess my Great Grandpa (who unfortunately only lived until 1969, his name is Gotleb John, Thanks for the info Cindy) on my Dad’s side liked to collect stones of different kinds. When I was little I loved them, Grandma Margaret showed me a bunch that had been kept from years before and she helped me mount them. We took cardboard and put fabric around it to make it look nice and then laid out the stones where we wanted them to go. Then Grandma hot glued them so they would stay in place. I had these two sheets for years and still have them in a box somewhere. So it has been kind of funny thing for me as Dad, Tyler and I unearth this Dirt and often are running through it looking for our own buried treasure to keep for later. It is amazing how those little moments when you are a kid stick with and mold who you become later in life. I am still fascinated by “dirt”, nature, the wild and the unknown, all because as a kid experiencing rocks, hiking, camping, playing in the yard, etc. It makes me very grateful to my parents and grandparents for sharing these memories with me. I now long for the time when we will be able to start to personally experience and learn about all that the earth has to offer.

The work continues on the driveway. We are now a week into it. I have come to find out that there is a lot more dirt in an area than you would ever imagine. We have been pulling dirt from the site to use on the drive way for a week now and still have more to move. We, though, have been fortunate.

A lot of what has come out of the ground has been decomposed granite. This works great as the base of our drive way. We have a fairly long driveway so this is very helpful when it comes to cost. The other savings has to do with the fact that if we couldn’t use the dirt somewhere we would have it removed. We figured the driveway would probably be about 20-30 loads of road base (at around $430 each load, ouch!) if we didn’t have this dirt, so like I said we have been very fortunate here. Parts of the road have been built up about 4′ to have the proper slope and access once the house is built. We will continue for the next few days on the road and removing dirt the video below is of our progress over the past week. On the agenda is the digging of the septic tanks and the leach field. We also have some wood to deliver to the neighbor who gave us an easement for the power. We just got the easement completed by the survey company so will be hopefully scheduling the power poles and line installation soon. We will keep you updated.

It seems that winter is officially here. We had a snow a few weeks back but it melted off fairly quickly. Last night there was about 2-3″ of snow that fell, when we showed up it was 17 degrees and the wind was blowing about 30 miles an hour. We were still able to work but to say the least it was a bit chilly. We will see how the weather treats us in the weeks to come. Right now we are removing dirt and using to create our driveway.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” What looks great to one person might not to the next. The exterior design of a home is a very important aspect to get correct. You want the house to look beautiful, but you also want it to blend in with the natural surroundings. In the mountains this can be a little more challenging. The pictures attached above were found on Pinterest. This can be a great aid in finding new ideas to round out your own picture. We have used things from Pinterest to driving in the mountains and looking at existing homes. The first image above is what we all like and are going to try and imitate. The images below are the conceptual drawings from the architect.

Why do shipments come in cars and cargo comes on a ship? Or how come we drive on parkways and park on driveways? Deep thoughts!Any way! We had the first full day of working on the driveway and Tyler was able to get a huge amount done. Check out our time lapse video.